A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875-1905The story of the talented American engineers and adventurers who labored to conquer gravity in a flying machine. When Orville and Wilbur Wright soared over Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's outer banks and solved the problem of aerial navigation, they wrote the last chapter in a long story. For decades prior, a small community of engineers, scientists, and dreamers—men named Chanute and Langley and Herring—had tried to make the ascent in every conceivable craft, from kites and gliders to an assortment of powered flying models. These imaginative people and their wonderful contraptions are brought to life in Tom Crouch's classic A Dream of Wings. In the quest for flight, aeronautical societies were formed and broke apart, successes were celebrated, hopes rose and fell, and lessons were learned and built upon. The dreamers who blazed the path to a flying machine are bravely realized in these delightful pages. |
Contents
Preface to the 1989 Edition | 8 |
Acknowledgments | 9 |
1 Huffman Prairie 1904 | 13 |
2 An Engineer Discovers the Airplane | 20 |
3 Experiments in Aerodynamics | 42 |
4 Chanute and Progress in Flying Machines | 61 |
5 A Meeting in Chicago | 78 |
The Third Circle | 101 |
The Glider Years | 175 |
10 Herring Alone 18961898 | 203 |
11 Two Gentlemen from Dayton | 223 |
12 The Great Aerodrome | 255 |
The Month of the Flying Machines | 284 |
The Old Order Passes 19051948 | 306 |
Notes | 311 |
Bibliography | 330 |